Out Of Reach
by Lady Liz
Summary: A Missing Scene from the episode "Abyss" Jack's train of thought enroute to his cell......


Out Of Reach  
  
By Liz  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, Baal or his Jaffa, and in now way affiliated with Gekko Film Corp or any other of Stargate SG-1's productions or subsidiaries. I am not looking to profit from this story.  
  
Authors Note: This story contained intentional misspellings of words such as "Goau'ld" and "Jaffa" as much of it takes place within the Mind of Jack O'Neill, who never pronounces them correctly anyway.  
  
It was slow going when Jack O'Neill finally mustered the energy to even think about opening his eyes. For a moment he wondered where he was, but only for a moment. The bright light assaulted his closed lids and it didn't take him long to remember. "Dammit" he thought sullenly. Very slowly he opened his eyes and was forced to blink several times in succession from the brightness of the sarcophagus. He lay their a moment assessing the situation and praying feebly that this was just a dream.  
  
Very gently he traced a finger over his chest and found...nothing. Sure their were holes in his clothing where the sharp knives had bit, but his flesh was warm and smooth. He felt no pain whatsoever, not even the nagging tension in his knee that had been left over from his last surgery.  
  
But he could remember well the pain of those knives that damn Gould –what was his name...Boche...Boche...oh right, Baal.– had hurled at him. First one shoulder, and then the other... and then when Jack didn't tell him what he wanted to know, the knife had pierced his heart, killing him.  
  
Now Jack wasn't one brushed up on theology but he had a pretty good idea and how dying was supposed to go. You know the way, follow the light and all that? Well Jack now had a first hand experience with dying. "Harp playing babes my ass" he thought. Death was neither fast nor painless, and the only light he'd seen was that of the sarcophagus as it regenerated him. What he'd felt was a sharp pain as the knife passed through his heart cleanly and then a gradual numbness and darkening of vision Next thing he knew he was right here in the sarcophagus, supposedly good as new.  
  
"Why do I always get myself into these things??" He thought as he closed his eyes again and remained stationary. Maybe that way the Jafa wouldn't scoop him up right away and bring him back to Baal. Jack cursed himself for being afraid. Why hadn't he just accepted death like a man back on earth? Why did he have to be all cowardly and agree to be implanted –a word which he never NEVER hoped to use again in regards to himself– with a symbiote? He was pretty sure that dying in the thralls of the sickness he got from that wacky frozen alien chick they'd found in the arctic would be way better then this. He'd already experienced death once, and he wasn't to keen on doing it again. But Baal had already made it clear that he would kill him again and again until he got his answers.  
  
"This Sucks!" he said out loud and instantly regretted it.  
  
One thing Jack had to admit about Jafa, they were strong. The moment he'd accidently spoken out loud a pair of those great brutes and picked him up out of the sarcophagus as if he weighed nothing at all. Once upright one of them barked something in his general direction, but the command whatever it was, had been in Gould.   
  
"Sorry Fellas, You know I'd love to make with the tea and the chitchat, but honestly, I can't understand a word your saying."  
  
He'd been rewarded with a slap to the face so hard that his head was still ringing.  
  
"See...now THAT I understand" he muttered as they began herding him out the door. The procession to wherever he was going took much longer this time, so he wondered if maybe they weren't taking him strait to Baal. "Sweet!" he thought and allowed himself to be half dragged this way and that as he turned his thoughts inward to the reason he was in this mess in the first place.  
  
The last thing he remembered was Sam's face. He was in the infirmary, near death and she roused him from his sleep. She'd told him that they had found a Tok'ra symbiote that was wiling to blend with him and heal him to save his life.  
  
"Over my dead body" he'd stated firmly, but Sam had pleaded. She told him how this symbiot's host had died in battle and how the only way to gain it's knowledge was to blend. Jack had rationalize in that split second that their was more at stake then just his life, and he would do it in the interests of helping the joint cause between the humans of earth and the Tok'ra. But here in this moment, as Jack was being dragged god know's where he was forced to conclude that in all honesty he was afraid to die. For all his heroics and past brave moments, he had been afraid. He was in the hands of an illness, not some kind of weapon's wound or impossible situation. Illness was something he couldn't control, and it had scared the hell out of him. The last thing he'd seen was Sam's small smile that had blended into darkness, and when he'd awakened to find himself face down in the mud in pain un unsure of just where the hell he was.  
  
What was he doing on the planet anyway? Baal spoke as if he'd been here before, saying that he knew just how to get to and from his most secret outpost. But Jack didn't have a clue, and he was pissed. Wasn't the Tok'ra mandate all about sharing the body equally? He knew for a fact that he hadn't shown up here –wherever here WAS– all by his lonesome. That Tok'ra had completely taken him over. He must be the most unlucky man alive he surmised, since of all the Tok'ra in he universe, he got implanted with the one that would act like a Gould. "Well, you hang out with a snake, you're bound to get bit." He thought.   
  
Jack nearly lost his footing when they suddenly stopped and was roughly pushed into a small cell. Jack didn't even have time for a witty comeback, as once his feet were firmly inside the cell he herd a soft whirring. Suddenly his stomach seemed to drop to his knees as the pressure around him shifted and he found himself sliding downward along the wall until his feet hit solid ground. He stood shakily and looked upwards into the sneering face of the Jaffa above him. Jack took a moment to quiet his stomach as he looked around the topsy-turvy room. He banged on one of the light fixtures as he absently wondered again what "Impudence" meant.   
  
He stopped his banging when he felt unknown eyes on him and looked upward again. She was almost motionless as kneeled above him looking down, and Jack had the oddest sensation.  
  
She was petitely pretty and dressed all in black. They regarded each other questioningly for a time before she spoke.  
  
"Is it you??"  
  
Jack stared hard at her face. He knew her, he knew he did, but try as he might he couldn't place her. The uncomfortable feeling in his stomach returned as he tried vainly to reach out into the black abyss of his lost memories. He wanted to find her, to be able to say whatever it was she was obviously expecting him to say, but he couldn't. The memories were simply beyond his reach, and he couldn't find them.  
  
"Hi Jack"  
  
Jack blinked and the woman was gone. He slowly turned his head to look down to the side, the hairs on his neck standing on end. Without the slightest twinge of unbelieving he found himself looking into a pair of friendly familiar blue eyes.  
  
"Daniel"  
  
Daniel Jackson sat unceremoniously near by. He gave a small wave while regarding Jack thoughtfully.  
  
"I leave and look at the mess you get yourself into...." 


End file.
